Marshall Islands Updates 2019 Roadmap for Sovereign Cryptocurrency

The Marshall Islands’ plan to issue a sovereign cryptocurrency, dubbed ‘the Sovereign’ (SOV), appears to be progressing, with the Oceanic nation announcing that it will work alongside Steve Tendon, a former adviser to the Maltese Office of the Prime Minister regarding blockchain policy, in developing the virtual currency.

The team working to launch Malta’s anticipated national cryptocurrency has published two documents seeking to articulate the project’s roadmap for the new year.

With regard to the ongoing cryptocurrency bear trend, the SOV team asserts that it is shifting its strategy from “attracting standard investors” to “forging partnerships with powerful allies that have a vested interest in seeing that sovereign crypto money succeeds.”

Elaborating further, the team predicts that sovereign countries will “play a major role in the future of crypto markets,” adding that “the blockchain that facilitates the first sovereign crypto money will be well positioned to achieve market dominance.” As such, the SOV team will seek to establish partnerships with “a handful of those powerful and well-capitalized blockchain platforms” to “provide a strong anchor for a coalition around the Marshall Islands.” The team also sought to reaffirm its commitment to launching the SOV during 2019.

Marshall Islands to Work With Steve Tendon to Launch SOV

In an article recently posted by the official Medium account of the SOV, the project announced that it would be working alongside Steve Tendon to develop and launch the Sovereign. Tendon is the managing director of consulting firms Chainstrategies and Tameflow Consulting, and is the former strategic adviser for Malta’s Ministry of Economy.

While working with the Ministry of Economy, Tendon was credited with developing Malta’s “Blockchain Island” strategy and National Blockchain Strategy. Tendon was subsequently appointed to the position of Strategy Lead to Malta’s National Blockchain Task Force, where he advised the Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation Office of the Prime Minister in executing distributed ledger technology policy.

To recognize his services, Tendon was bestowed with the Malta Blockchain Awards’ “Outstanding Contribution to the Blockchain Island” in 2018.

Marshall Islands Seeks to Become Cayman Islands of Crypto

According to the team, the project’s developers “envision the Marshall Islands evolving in a similar way to the Cayman Islands,” a territory which currently incorporates “75% of the world’s hedge funds” in spite of having a small population that is comparable to that of the Marshall Islands.

The SOV team claims to be seeking to develop an analogous economic “ecosystem” in the Marshall Islands, which they hope “will attract existing and new banks, exchanges, and startups to operate physically and virtually from the Marshall Islands and grow a new industry there with a friendly and inviting regulatory framework, served with a native sovereign cryptocurrency.”

Do you think the Marshall Islands will succeed in becoming the first nation to issue a sovereign cryptocurrency? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock

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Samuel Haig

Samuel Haig is a journalist who has been completely obsessed with bitcoin and cryptocurrency since 2012. Samuel lives in Tasmania, Australia, where he attended the University of Tasmania and majored in Political Science, and Journalism, Media & Communications. Samuel has written about the dialectics of decentralization, and is also a musician and kangaroo riding enthusiast.

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